An ECDC report on seasonal influenza vaccination

The
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) recently released a technical report in support of the Council
Recommendation on seasonal influenza vaccination that the European Union (EU)
Council adopted in December 2009. Aim of this Recommendation was to ask for
concerted action to be taken, at a European level, to mitigate the impact of seasonal
influenza by encouraging vaccination among risk groups and healthcare workers.

The
ECDC provided technical assistance to Member States on monitoring the current
situation with seasonal influenza and influenza immunization, and this report
comes from the gathering of a great part of such data. Specifically, the
document provides data on vaccination policies and strategies, vaccination
coverage, and barriers to vaccination for seasonal influenza in the EU/EEA
countries, drawn from two primary sources: the annual survey by the VENICE project and a Supplementary Questionnaire
developed and implemented by ECDC to collect additional data especially
relevant to the Council Recommendation. The report also cites the four European
projects – TELLME being the first of the list – related to seasonal influenza
vaccination and funded by the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation
or by the Executive Agency for Health and Consumers.

The analysis of the data collected led ECDC
experts to conclude that, since 2009, Member States have made limited progress
in achieving the aims outlined in the Council Recommendation on seasonal
influenza vaccination, despite the fact that almost all countries reported
having in place national and regional vaccination policies or strategies for seasonal
influenza. While few of them managed to get close to the given targets, they
represent a minority and, since the deadline for the aims outlined in the
Council Recommendation is the 2014-15 influenza season, it seems unlikely that
more than a handful of them will manage to reach them. Such perception that
little or no progress is being made was reinforced by the lack of data on vaccination
coverage for relevant categories such as people with chronic conditions and
healthcare workers. However, the report recognizes that a majority of them are
instituting national programmes and have identified steps that could be taken
to improve vaccination coverage rates in the short term and to strengthen the
infrastructure to enable steady gains in coverage over the longer term.